


Two Worlds Collided

by auclairdusoleil



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auclairdusoleil/pseuds/auclairdusoleil
Summary: “Why can I see you now?” His hands shake. He squeezes them together in his lap.Mercutio shrugs.“Maybe you drank too much at the wedding. Maybe you have finally lost your mind. Do you care?”
Relationships: Mercutio & Romeo Montague, Mercutio/Romeo Montague
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Romeo & Juliet / Romeo et Juliette Fanfic Exchange 2020





	Two Worlds Collided

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alley_Skywalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/gifts).



> This was written with romantic feelings between Romeo and Mercutio in mind, but you could choose to interpret it as close friendship if you’re so inclined. And yes, the title is from Never Tear Us Apart by INXS, because this was written listening to a fair amount of 80’s pop/rock.

The invitation to the wedding of one Juliet Capulet to a scion of some family or another arrives on a dull morning. The shimmering gold ink which illuminates her name is almost a substitute for the sun.

Romeo will attend, of course. It would be unseemly, an affront to the dignity of the Capulets and the fragile peace that has settled over Verona, for the Montague heir to forgo the event. It matters not that he will attend alone, no suitable wife - nor even an unsuitable one - at his elbow. He will pay his respects to Juliet and the undoubtedly-dashing Alessandro, speak for some minutes with Lady Capulet, inquire as to Lord Capulet’s health and nod solemnly at the response, and then dance with the young ladies of the city, fastidiously avoiding meeting the bride’s eyes for the entire evening.

It will be simple.

***

The wedding day dawns clear and bright, the sky an uninterrupted pale sweep above the city. There is a certain weight tugging at the depths of Romeo’s stomach. He determinedly attributes it to overindulgence at dinner last night, and longs for a grey sky. The floor is cold beneath his feet, his limbs still stiff from sleep, and when he attempts to leave the room in search of breakfast, his foot makes agonising contact with the frame of the door. Did such misfortune ever befall Juliet’s Antonio?

“ _Fuck_ ,” Romeo mutters, to no one in particular. God, perhaps.

The shutter he had opened a minute before, the one that he used to leave open so that he - _they_ \- could sneak about the city at night, slams shut, and he wonders if it is God saying “ _Fuck you too.”_

***

It is imperative that they leave at thirty minutes past the hour, his mother had said, with one pointed look for her husband and one for her son. It is now seventeen minutes past, and Romeo cannot find his best doublet. God damn the thing, he had seen it hanging on the door not a moment ago, and now it was gone, and he would _not_ wear his second-best. _Armando_ will not be wearing his second-best doublet.

Something rustles, twitches, across the room, and Romeo turns. Laid out on his bed, bright in the streaming sunlight, is his doublet. The silver thread twinkles as if to proclaim its innocence. Romeo spares a moment to exhale dramatically and run a hand through his own hair.

_“Such vanity,”_ says a voice which seems to be floating just beyond the bounds of Romeo’s own grey-fogged mind. The words are tinted with a dreadfully familiar, long-gone laugh, and he ignores them.

***

The carriage passes through what seems to be most of the city, because they are the Montagues and this is an Occasion. The Lord and Lady engage each other in their accustomed loving hostilities, his wild gestures balanced perfectly by her icy stares, and so Romeo is left to gaze out the window at all the places he would rather not see. The stones have been scrubbed clean, of course, because not even the citizens of Verona were willing to conduct their lives over red-stained marble. In his mind’s eye, however, the streets are littered with bloated corpses and their attendant swarming flies. 

Romeo looks away.

He watches Benvolio instead, observing the tight knot of his hands and the resolute set of his head as his eyes flicker across the scenery that Romeo cannot bear to behold. The woman Benvolio is to marry (for the patience Lady Montague affords her son in these matters does not extend to her nephew) will be at the wedding, he knows. They will be able to dance together, unmasked, and converse as they please. There is no need for subterfuge this time, and yet still Romeo finds himself longing for a simpler time. One of the horses spooks.

***

The walls of the Capulet residence are as Romeo remembers them: tall, unyielding, bathed in flickering golden torchlight. A steady stream of finery pours through the great gates, men and women resplendent in bright cloth and sparkling jewels. No masks, this time. All who enter are greeted with a servant’s polite smile, then whisked away to be charmed by Lady Capulet or introduced to a cousin, a niece, a godson. The smile Romeo receives is exactly as gracious as all the rest. A red-clad servant leads him to his family’s place, calculated, in the church, and his mind fills with visions of red blooming across red. The familiar clash of steel on steel echoes from the vaulted stone ceiling, and it is only when Benvolio pulls at his sleeve that he realises he is the only one of the Montague party still standing.

The bride is radiant, Romeo assumes, and the groom shines. He doesn’t see them. He sees a blade piercing flesh, a faltering smile, and a hand clasped in his own; grasping, clutching, desperate, _cold_. He imagines he can still feel that cool weight now, and shivers.

***

The dance is… peaceful.

Benvolio is speaking lowly with his intended (and her parents, God help the man), leaving a terrible gap on Romeo’s left. His right, of course, is full of absence, and he feels exposed, unable to stop himself searching the room for a young man with fury in his eyes and a knife up his sleeve.

The young man will not come. Instead, Alfonso laughs, gripping his new wife’s delicate hand; the musicians play joyful songs; drink is offered liberally to all. A crystal glass standing on a table next to Romeo tips over the edge and shatters on the floor, seemingly of its own accord.

***

The single candle flickers, valiantly struggling against the dark and the draught to light the whole of Romeo’s bedroom. In the amber half-light, he thinks he sees a body, achingly familiar, sprawled upon his bed. It is late. He is alone. And so he indulges whatever madness his grief has seen fit to conjure for him tonight.

He traces the long lines of the vision’s limbs with his eyes, every dip and rise exactly as they are preserved in Romeo’s memory. Clever fingers, sharp wrist, sloping shoulder, and a wicked, insolent grin. The spectre winks. Romeo flinches.

“Ah,” it says, in Mercutio’s voice, “he sees me at last. Please, take a seat.”

“Um,” Romeo says, and awkwardly perches himself on the very edge of his own bed.

He looks at the thing that seems to be Mercutio. The thing that seems to be Mercutio looks back at him.

“You are dead.”

It takes all Romeo’s strength of will not to choke on that final, mortal word. Could-be-Mercutio nods.

“And yet here I am. Have been, for a while, but you keep looking right through me. I had to make trouble just to get your attention for a heartbeat.”

_You always have my attention,_ Romeo thinks. _In the city, on the road, in this room, in the cathedral, in my lungs and every heartbeat._ Then he thinks, _shutter, doublet, horse, hands, glass, my God, you are here. You are here._

“Why can I see you now?” His hands shake. He squeezes them together in his lap.

Mercutio shrugs.

“Maybe you drank too much at the wedding. Maybe you have finally lost your mind. Do you care?”

Romeo finds that he does not.

“Did it hurt?”

“Dying?” Mercutio barks a laugh. “Yes. Lord, Romeo, I bled out on the cobbles, of course it hurt.”

He can find no answer to that, so he lets silence stretch between them, cursing his own stupidity.

“It hurt because I knew I was leaving you behind,” Mercutio murmurs, and Romeo is dizzy.

He reaches a hand out towards Mercutio - there is no hiding its trembling like this, but Romeo does not want to - and tries to place it atop Mercutio’s own. He wants– he wants something, some acknowledgement, some connection, he _wants,_ and instead finds a brief shock of cold and his hand resting on the bedcover. Mercutio smiles, and it is a sad thing.

“I am a half-thing, Romeo. I cannot be entirely here.”

“I wish you could be,” he says, fierce with the wanting of it. This draws another smile, this one summer-warm.

“Always so impractical,” Mercutio says. “Always dreaming. To bed with you now, and in the morning we shall see whether this was all drink’s trick.”

“Will you stay?” Romeo asks.

“There is nowhere else I could go.”

It sounds like a promise. The candle goes out.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompts I was given were all pretty amazing, but this one in particular basically wrote the story for me:  
> “AU where Romeo (and maybe Juliet if you’d like) lives. A few years after the events of the play, Romeo is starting to think that the grief has finally driven him mad, because he’s begun to hallucinate Mercutio at odd times. Bonus points for a midnight conversation and Mercutio actually being a ghost. (If Juliet is alive and R/J are together, I’d rather not have too much of a focus on their relationship.)”  
> Thank you so much for making my life so easy - I hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> (I’m @audax-subdolus-varius on Tumblr - feel free to talk to me there!)


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